What do you think has been the most successful entertainment release of 2015? Avengers: Age of Ultron? Nope. Jurassic World? Not even close. Topping the charts this year, making $179 million on its opening day, was Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Who said triple-A gaming is dying?

Perhaps if The Avengers had a dog…

For the record, the latest Avengers movie made a mere $84m on its opening day, after costing more than $250m to make. MGS V, on the other hand, cost closer to $80m.

The statistics have been released by Adobe Digital Index. Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst and director at the company has her thoughts on what’s making games so popular:

These games get more social buzz on opening day than most movies do, and the revenue for one of the top games this year outdid the highest-grossing movie start [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with $91 million] by nearly double. And I thought the movie industry was big. That’s huge.

These numbers are backed up by new research that shows the games industry (an estimated $91.5m) will be worth more than films (anticipated $88.3m) in 2015 – we’re no longer looking to “the future” for this to happen.

Gaffney continues:

The gaming industry is a lot bigger than most marketers realize.

Another interesting thing to take away from Adobe’s report could see a shift in the games release calendar: While most industries enjoy a spike around the holiday / end of year season, video game sales are nearly as high in June, something that surprised analysts. (It shouldn’t be too shocking: The peak in sales ties in with all the big reveals and hype surrounding E3.)

What is more surprising in 2015 is the game that’s netted the most pre-orders in the leadup to release. If you’d asked us, we’d have believed the hype and named Fallout 4 as our pick… but the gaming pack mentality remains, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 taking out the top spot. But how do gamers feel about this? 33% of all social interactions around pre-ordering video games are recorded as “sad”, with just 2% reporting a sense of anticipation. And yet, here we are.